netcfg v2.2.1

iphitus · 2009-06-27 02:48:01

netcfg v2.2.1 is released. it's in [testing] and should be in [core] shortly.

Because theres so many fixes in 2.2 from 2.1, I decided it was better to push out a new stable release than wait for wireless-dbus to stabilise. wireless-dbus is still there, but unchanged and just as broken as before.

On the other hand, the normal wireless, ethernet and ethernet-iproute connections are as stable as ever. I received few bug reports, and no wireless regression reports with the last beta cycle which was very encouraging!

New Features from 2.1
- iproute support (CONNECTION='ethernet-iproute')
- Improved reliability in regular wireless (CONNECTION=wireless)
- Wired wpa_supplicant support (untested)
- Some new netcfg arguments for convenience: 'reconnect', 'clean'.
- Support for connection methods written in other languages than bash
- Refactored resuable functions into separate files from connection methods.
- Additional documentation of supported options (see git)
- Many bug fixes

Upgrading
* Remove any QUIRKS options, as *most* of these are no longer necessary, or are unneccesary due to changes in netcfg. These were a poor solution in the first place and cause more problems than they solve in some cases.

Third party netcfg tools/addons
Some of the older addons may not work.

The following netcfg addons are known to work:
wifi-select: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=63973
netcfg-tray: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=74742

netcfg-tray - tray icon/menu!
A 'simple' tray icon for netcfg. The aim is a very simple front to start/stop netcfg/netlib profiles and just make it a little more convenient. Not a full clicky configure-everything GUI.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=74742

IPRoute Support
iproute support has been implemented (CONNECTION="ethernet-iproute"). The config options I've setup for it make connecting using a simple static IP or more advanced configurations easier.

This support is not option compatible with the old, so a new config is required. Examples are provided in /etc/network.d/examples

wireless-dbus
This is known broken, don't report bugs.

Documentation
Documentation is still catching up a little bit.
* There is a full set of example configs.
* Initial documentation of supported configuration options is presently in git.
* Wiki needs to be updated to reflect -iproute/-dbus.
* netcfg manpage needs to be updated

iphitus · 2009-07-05 05:47:32

Could someone complain? please?

litemotiv · 2009-07-05 09:33:47

works great on my local N-router so far, though so did 2.1. connection time is a tad slower than with 2.1 (a few seconds), but so far each connection has been succesful.

will be interesting to see what my G-router at work will do, 2.1 somehow never spawned dhcpcd there so i had to start that manually before running netcfg. i have another G airing here somewhere which i'll try too.

edit: local G-router connects without problems too, faster than N (with 2.1. this was the other way around). tested with both manual connect and background @net-auto

intel 5100 / netgear wndr3300

so far so good!

Last edited by litemotiv (2009-07-05 09:48:12)

Army · 2009-07-05 15:04:31

iphitus wrote:

Could someone complain? please?

Well, I had this http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 81#p573181 issue a few days ago when I met a friend and it was really annoying, so I downloaded the wicd packages from another computer, saved them on mine and a pacman -U solved the issue. What I'm trying to say is, netcfg works really great and I love this piece of software! But it definitely seems like it's not perfect. Or is this REALLY only dhcpcd's fault? If so, should we have a modified dhcpcd.conf as default? The thing is, not being able to connect to the internet is really horrible!!

litemotiv · 2009-07-07 16:23:41

connecting to my office G-router works alright, but there is a persistent bug when i walk out of range from the signal. the network is lost and doesnt allow reconnecting:

64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=60 ttl=64 time=2.23 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=61 ttl=64 time=5.02 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=62 ttl=64 time=2.16 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=63 ttl=64 time=2.19 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=67 ttl=64 time=16.0 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.138: icmp_seq=70 ttl=64 time=59.7 ms
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable

[ ... out of range here ...]

ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
^C

[ollie@arch ~]% iwconfig

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"Office"  
Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
Tx-Power=15 dBm   
Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

[ollie@arch ~]% sudo netcfg office
> office already connected 

[ollie@arch ~]% sudo netcfg -d office  
:: office down                                                                                     [DONE] 

[ollie@arch ~]% sudo netcfg office   
:: office up                                                                                       [BUSY] 

wlan0     Failed to read scan data : Resource temporarily unavailable
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Device or resource busy
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Device or resource busy
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Device or resource busy
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Device or resource busy

- Network not present  [FAIL]

ccc1 · 2009-07-07 16:43:14

wifi-select (0.8-1) is not compatible with netcfg v2.2.1.
errors (rough translation ):
/usr/bin/wifi-select: Line 11: /usr/lib/network/network.subr: not such file or directory
awk: Fatal: can't open '/parse-iwlist.awk' (not such file or directory).
> no networks found

Last edited by ccc1 (2009-07-07 16:48:12)

shining · 2009-07-07 17:09:22

works great on an open wireless network!

scio · 2009-07-07 18:13:12

ccc1 wrote:

wifi-select (0.8-1) is not compatible with netcfg v2.2.1.
errors (rough translation ):
/usr/bin/wifi-select: Line 11: /usr/lib/network/network.subr: not such file or directory
awk: Fatal: can't open '/parse-iwlist.awk' (not such file or directory).
> no networks found

I think if you do:

ln -s /usr/lib/network/network /usr/lib/network/network.subr

It will work until wifi-select is updated.

ccc1 · 2009-07-08 16:46:18

scio wrote:

I think if you do:
ln -s /usr/lib/network/network /usr/lib/network/network.subr
It will work until wifi-select is updated.

cheers.

ccc1

linfan · 2009-07-12 19:59:53

Seems with my ath5k and madwifi I still need the QUIRKS=(prescan preessid)

But I had to remove SCAN=yes

max.bra · 2009-07-13 20:01:03

fresh installed netcfg 2.2.1

i suffer a 'No connection' error here. This happens regularly at boot and on netcfg restart.
I have a marvel ethernet controller:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)

The only way to keep the things work for me is to set the sleep time between link up and link show to 2 secs.

    ip link set $INTERFACE up
    sleep 2

    if ip link show $INTERFACE|grep -q "NO-CARRIER"; then

since i have never suffer any errors/problems with your great tool, i have never read your past scripts.
Don't think it's a module/kernel problem. 2.6.30.1 was running great with netcfg 2.1.3 (previous stable version seem to remember).

Sounds strange that new need of more sleep time...

PapaNoa · 2009-07-15 19:58:31

Is there a way to include dns search domains in a netcfg profile for static ip configurations?

There is a wonderful new feature of dhcpcd that prepends /etc/resolv.conf.head to the generated /etc/resolv.conf but unfortunately this does not come to play when using a static ip configuration. Adding it to /etc/resolv.conf is not of much use for me either, as I'm using both static and dynamic ip configurations and /etc/resolv.conf is overwritten every time.

Any hints? Or do I need to add a fancy quirk to achieve that? Regard this as a feature request if it's not possible yet

panzeroceania · 2009-07-15 23:30:17

it actually works great for me, I had wireless via wicd on my laptop but for some reason didn't want to work on my old desktop so I tried out the new version of netcfg and it has been smooth sailing ever since.

zlowly · 2009-07-16 02:54:56

max.bra wrote:

fresh installed netcfg 2.2.1
i suffer a 'No connection' error here. This happens regularly at boot and on netcfg restart.
I have a marvel ethernet controller:
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
The only way to keep the things work for me is to set the sleep time between link up and link show to 2 secs.
    ip link set $INTERFACE up
    sleep 2

    if ip link show $INTERFACE|grep -q "NO-CARRIER"; then
since i have never suffer any errors/problems with your great tool, i have never read your past scripts.
Don't think it's a module/kernel problem. 2.6.30.1 was running great with netcfg 2.1.3 (previous stable version seem to remember).
Sounds strange that new need of more sleep time...

Same here. I did another test:

[ 10:48:13 ] % sudo ip link set eth0 down                                                                                                                                      ~)-
[ 10:49:41 ] % sudo ip link show eth0                                                                                                                                          ~)-
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1a:4b:77:80:73 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
[ 10:49:50 ] % sudo ip link set eth0 up                                                                                                                                        ~)-
[ 10:49:59 ] % sudo ip link show eth0                                                                                                                                          ~)-
2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1a:4b:77:80:73 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
[ 10:50:00 ] % sudo ip link show eth0                                                                                                                                          ~)-
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1a:4b:77:80:73 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

iphitus · 2009-07-16 03:02:13

ok thanks. I'll add a sleep...

PapaNoa: Yes, netcfg can do that, it has the following DNS options so that you can specify a whole resolv.conf in the profile.

SEARCH=
DOMAIN=
DNS=()

Where DNS=() is an array of all the DNS servers, for example

DNS=(192.168.1.23 192.168.1.22)

litemotiv · 2009-07-17 20:18:04

linfan wrote:

Seems with my ath5k and madwifi I still need the QUIRKS=(prescan preessid)
But I had to remove SCAN=yes

i don't need any quirks on my ath5k machine, works fine without prescan/pressid and with scan=yes

@iphitus: with intel 5100 i need to manually start dhcpcd before connecting to an apple airport station, otherwise it won't obtain a lease. with dhcpcd started beforehand it's 100% success (haven't tried dhcp_timeout, but this might be a cleaner solution?).

Last edited by litemotiv (2009-07-17 20:18:55)

tomd123 · 2009-07-23 18:22:16

I am also getting the no connection error at boot.

PapaNoa · 2009-07-26 10:23:00

@iphitus:
Thanks, works like a charm. I already suspected that feature existed, but I couldn't find it documented anywhere...

jacko · 2009-07-26 12:44:25

@iphitus

I have major issues with netcfg. I would really really enjoy figuring these issues out since wicd is no also useless for me.

[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo netcfg wireless
:: wireless up                                                                  [BUSY]
SIOCADDRT: No such process
 - Adding gateway failed.

                                                                                    [FAIL]
[jasin@laptop ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

irda0     no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point:
Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

As you can see the essid is never set, so I thought adding in the quirks prescan and preessid would help. It did nothing. Also, the device under ifconfig is also down after running netfcfg. The only way I can get netcfg to work is by manually setting up the network and then bringing the interface down only to run netcfg again. seee below...

[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "jnet"
[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.4
[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo route add default gw 192.168.1.1
[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
[jasin@laptop ~]$ sudo netcfg wireless
:: wireless up                                                           [DONE]

Here is my profile.

CONNECTION="wireless"
DESCRIPTION="A simple wireless connection"
INTERFACE="wlan0"
ESSID="jnet"
IP="static"
ADDR="192.168.1.4"
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

what am I doing wrong? Need more info, just ask

[jasin@laptop ~]$ lsmod | grep ath
ath5k                 121704  0 
mac80211              183008  1 ath5k
led_class               3976  2 thinkpad_acpi,ath5k
cfg80211               67524  2 ath5k,mac80211

Last edited by jacko (2009-07-26 12:50:45)

jacko · 2009-08-01 11:28:04

really, you want peoples bug reports, then why not acknowlege them when they are posted???

iphitus · 2009-08-01 13:02:53

jacko wrote:

really, you want peoples bug reports, then why not acknowlege them when they are posted???

Sorry about this.

- This is not a bug tracker, the bug tracker is at http://bugs.archlinux.org
- I've been busy lately. This semester I'm studying at two campuses, both over an hour from home and with late finishes most days of the week. About the only thing I'm capable of when I get home is sleeping.
- I work on Arch voluntarily. I work on netcfg when I want to so that it's something I enjoy and not a chore. I want to help and improve it, but sometimes I don't have enough time for it.

Anyway, I had another look, your config is wrong. This ought to fix it. I suppose it could be documented better that wireless still uses the 'connections/ethernet' style of config rather than the newer ethernet-static. I'll add another example next release.

CONNECTION="wireless"
DESCRIPTION="A simple wireless connection"
INTERFACE="wlan0"
ESSID="jnet"
IP="static"
IFOPTS="192.168.1.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255"
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

Try that and report back.

Have a nice day.

Last edited by iphitus (2009-08-01 13:33:59)

jacko · 2009-08-14 15:37:34

iphitus wrote:

jacko wrote:
really, you want peoples bug reports, then why not acknowlege them when they are posted???
Sorry about this.
- This is not a bug tracker, the bug tracker is at http://bugs.archlinux.org
- I've been busy lately. This semester I'm studying at two campuses, both over an hour from home and with late finishes most days of the week. About the only thing I'm capable of when I get home is sleeping.
- I work on Arch voluntarily. I work on netcfg when I want to so that it's something I enjoy and not a chore. I want to help and improve it, but sometimes I don't have enough time for it.
Anyway, I had another look, your config is wrong. This ought to fix it. I suppose it could be documented better that wireless still uses the 'connections/ethernet' style of config rather than the newer ethernet-static. I'll add another example next release.
CONNECTION="wireless"
DESCRIPTION="A simple wireless connection"
INTERFACE="wlan0"
ESSID="jnet"
IP="static"
IFOPTS="192.168.1.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255"
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"
Try that and report back.
Have a nice day.

I would have filed a bug, but I was not so sure it was a bug. As it turned out it was a misconfigured config file. If you want I will file an appropriate bug now which is please add a correct example for static ip connections for wireless setups. THANK YOU! It works brilliantly now.

snack · 2009-09-13 15:09:40

Hi, I cannot make netcfg set the correct hostname when connecting to my Netgear DGN2000 router. This is my profile:

CONNECTION="ethernet"
HOSTNAME="elric"
DESCRIPTION="NETGEAR ethernet"
INTERFACE=eth0
IP="static"
IFOPTS="192.168.0.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 255.255.255.255"
GATEWAY="192.168.0.1"

In the "Attached devices" section of the router's configuration GUI the MAC address and the IP address shows to be correct, but the device name is UNKNOWN instead of elric. I don't know if this is a bug or an error on my configuration file.
Thanks to everybody!

Last edited by snack (2009-09-13 15:11:49)

uastasi · 2009-10-31 15:35:26

Is there a way to set up wlancard power while bringing up a profile?

Finkregh · 2009-11-03 20:46:08

Any idea if you implement VLAN-Support any time soon? http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15661

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-27 02:48:01

netcfg v2.2.1

#2 2009-07-05 05:47:32

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#3 2009-07-05 09:33:47

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#4 2009-07-05 15:04:31

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#5 2009-07-07 16:23:41

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#6 2009-07-07 16:43:14

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#7 2009-07-07 17:09:22

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#8 2009-07-07 18:13:12

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#9 2009-07-08 16:46:18

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#10 2009-07-12 19:59:53

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#11 2009-07-13 20:01:03

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#12 2009-07-15 19:58:31

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#13 2009-07-15 23:30:17

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#14 2009-07-16 02:54:56

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#15 2009-07-16 03:02:13

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#16 2009-07-17 20:18:04

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#17 2009-07-23 18:22:16

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#18 2009-07-26 10:23:00

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#19 2009-07-26 12:44:25

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#20 2009-08-01 11:28:04

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#21 2009-08-01 13:02:53

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#22 2009-08-14 15:37:34

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#23 2009-09-13 15:09:40

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#24 2009-10-31 15:35:26

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

#25 2009-11-03 20:46:08

Re: netcfg v2.2.1

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